Olive Kitteridge
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and an Emmy-Award Winning Mini Series! In a voice more powerful and compassionate than ever before, New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Strout binds together thirteen rich, luminous narratives into a book with the heft of a novel, through the presence of one larger-than-life, unforgettable character: Olive Kitteridge. Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition–its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.
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This is a novel more about a person than about a plot. I found it a thought-provoking book with a lot of insight about life.
I picked up this book in part because it won a Pulitzer, but I was disappointed. The main character, Olive Kitteridge, is a tense, often-angry woman with no ability to self-censor her thoughts. While main characters need not be perfect, I never really got to like her, though she grows more sympathetic as she grows older. She lacks humor, making it even more puzzling that Strout would choose someone so basically unlikeable as the focus of these stories. Also, while all the stories supposedly have Olive as some sort of focal point, or give her relevance, two only mention her by name, and those stories seem not connected at all to the town of Crosby, Maine, where most of the action takes place. Finally, Olive's slams at former president GW Bush as a "moron" and as someone who looks "retarded" did nothing to further endear her to me, though it probably did some members of the Pulitzer committee. Her bona fides as someone sassy and opinionated were already well-documented; sticking in her political opinions seemed tacked on and irrelevant. What was the point? Three stars for Strout's excellent writing, though.
Olive Kitteridge is a beautiful collection of short stories that introduce the reader to the title character from many viewpoints, including her own. I thought it was a very effective way to examine one's place in society. Strout examines relationships -- from budding, young love to longtime commitments, parent/child, neighbors and friends -- in a way that always rings true. The bottom line is everyone is looking for love and acceptance.
Loved this book. Olive is an ornery old coot living in small-town Crosby, Maine, and she's at times funny, frustrating, irritating, infuriating, sympathetic, but you can't wait to find out what happens next, or, in some cases, what happened before. Told as a series of short stories, it also focuses on other people in the town, but Olive is the center of this universe.
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